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Yes. Funnily enough, that's how I feel about people who dismiss those making complex arguments based on the history and purpose of copyright, the free market model, and the balance between law enforcement and personal liberties as simply being freeloaders and/or Marxists. In actuality, the Pirate Party's arguments are primarily liberal (and not in the watered-down American sense of "generally lefty"). Consider the following quote:
This comes not from Marx, but from Friedrich Hayek in his book The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism.
What are these profits to which you refer? The interview subject, Rick Falkvinge, and the Pirate Party do not profit from file sharing. You may be confusing the Pirate Party with The Pirate Bay, which is entirely unrelated. Neither does it disregard the law; its purpose is to change the law, through legal means. This is in part to protect aspects of law (such as the right to private communication) and the respect for the rule of law, which relies on laws being supported by the people as a whole and at least somewhat practically enforceable.
If you have a problem with the last sentence, consider this: the exact same arguments were used to motivate the explicit exception in Swedish copyright law allowing copying of software for personal use, an exception which still stands.
Outside of the USA not everyone fears the words "socialist", "marxist" or even (to a lesser extent) "communist".
True with respect to socialism, although I've yet to meet a Marxist with their feet on the ground. I'd say there is widespread disregard for pseudo-Marxist bullshit, particularly from people who think that spouting multiple lines of self-serving argument to justify why they should profit handsomely from other people's efforts demonstrates how intellectually superior they are. It is with good reason that the line "The lady doth protest too much" is a popular quote. Anyone spouting puerile caricatures of their opposition's position whilst simultaneously claiming moral and intellectual superiority is pretty much deserving of contempt as far as I'm concerned.
It's great that Sweden is having this discussion, and of course the reality is that filesharing and P2P has to be defended. But it's a logical fallacy to respect someone purely because their profits rely on winning that argument. Personally, I find it difficult to like someone whose arguments always seem to rely upon how nasty the enemy is, or how they simply cannot be stopped. Comparing yourself to Gandhi while staunchly defending your profits is distasteful. It reminds me of extreme right-wingers who likewise care little for the law, as long as their money and their self-righteousness can be safely defended using high minded platitudes.
If that were the case, I suppose that would be O.K., since everyone's entitled to an opinion in a free society. But if you are judging him a kook by these caricatures of him, you are really being unfair. For a fairer view of rms from a prominent leader of free software (a former leader of Debian project) and open source (drafter of Open Source Definition), check out this comment.
....I know you must think I'm full of shit.....
No, most definitely not so.
Nothing goes out of existence in this universe, only changes form. We all, including you, are indeed infected with a virus. The Bible calls it SIN and outlines the steps God has taken to eradicate it.
I hope, that before you die, you WILL meet the REAL Jesus, rather than some caricature you may have in your mind.
God knows who you are and I'll add you to my prayer list.
Thanks for the discussion.
Armin
Are you a poor troll or are you really this ignorant in real life? If it's the latter I'd suggest seeking help for your warped world-view before you explode in a shower of self-righteous bile.
I'm guessing you've been called a feminazi, probably by a woman, which only served to push your head further up your backside. She may or may not have been correct but you certainly have the potential to become the caricature you rail against.
This is slashdot. Even people who agree with you will point out if you overstate your case, bring up an incorrect side comment, or simply use "their" instead of "there". It doesn't always mean they are defending the parent or grandparent or great grandparent poster.
:)
Just like the guy doesn't know why the girl acted like a jerk (and yes, she can act like a jerk on an off moment even if she isn't a jerk in her "normal life") it's also true that you may be jumping to conclusions about why all these other guys (or perhaps girls) seem to be jumping to a jokesters defense.
Personally, I got the impression that the original poster wasn't making an attack on the woman who landed a wonder woman job but poking a little fun at the feminist caricature. Perhaps it was uncalled for...but I didn't see it all that much more uncalled for than when some poster mentions a girlfriend and a half dozen people pipe in with some "humorous" comment about living in a basement or "pics or it didn't happen" or other such at male nerd caricatures. Again, doesn't make it right, but again we can't assume we know why a particular person made such a joke.
I really don't know that I'd agree that one type is so much more common than another, either. Girls that are jerks and use a cliche feminist line while being a jerk aren't exactly scarce where I've lived. Neither are guys who seem to have hygeine issues and make some comment about their mom that make it sound like he lives downstairs from her. We tend not to delve deeper with both of those kinds of people to get at the truth of their lives and understand them and figure out if our assumptions are correct simply because that process is so often an unpleasant one.
now cue the posts about how I misspelled hygiene and point out some superfluous flaw in my reasoning. This is slashdot. Enjoy it for what it is.
Sorry, but if he was honestly trying to help the person (and it sounded like he was), then it was completely fucking out of place for the woman to flip out because he was a guy and she was a girl. THATS the point. If he wasn't helping her because she was a girl, but her fucked up sense of victimization read that into his intentions, then she was every bit the caricature of a feminist bitch that the right-wing has portrayed them to be.
And every Women's Studies person I know (professor and student alike) subscribes to this same twisted worldview that reads every interaction between men and women as an attempted power play.
Fuck them. Sometimes people are just trying to be polite.
"The woman in 1993 was just a jerk. The Florida State Women's Studies prof who defended her and not once expressed a sentiment of 'yes, she was a jerk'? She was the right-wing caricature of a feminazi."
You've attempted not only to defend the original sexist jerk, but you've also attempted to defend the professor who was defending her. Congrats, Red, you fit the description of "right-wing caricature of a femenazi" even better than that prof did.
In 1993 I was a freshman at a large university. I saw a fellow student staggering under a double armload of textbooks, and I did precisely what I would do for any student in a fellow situation: I opened the door. The fact this student was female had no bearing on my decision. In return for this, I got a glare and then a shouted "You know, it's because of domineering, overbearing males like you that one in four college women is raped!" Then she stormed off and found another entrance to the building, just so she could avoid the door I opened for her.
But wait, she's not the caricature the far-right draws of the militant feminist. She was just a jerk. Women can be jerks as easily as men.
A few years ago I was talking to a Women's Studies professor at Florida State and I related this story. I also mentioned how angry I had been at the time, still was, to be lumped in with rapists just because I opened a door for someone who had a double armload of books. This professor listened, considered her words very carefully, and then said clearly I needed to take her introductory Women's Studies course so that I could understand the jerk's "context". I said I didn't really care about her context, it was a stupid comparison to make, and the hate directed at me was entirely undeserved and uncivilized. "Yes, but that's the point, you see," she explained to me patiently. "You've never opened your eyes and thought about what sort of life experiences could make her react in such a way, or the actions you did which provoked this response. You only care about your own male-oriented view and undercutting the validity of her life experience." (I am not quoting her exactly, but I am quoting her pretty darn close. It's been a few years, but the outrageousness of the dialog has made it stick in my memory very clearly.)
She went on for about another ten minutes before I had enough and stormed away.
The woman in 1993 was just a jerk. The Florida State Women's Studies prof who defended her and not once expressed a sentiment of "yes, she was a jerk"? She was the right-wing caricature of a feminazi.
Fortunately, people like her seem to be rare. At least, I've never found one outside of a Women's Studies department. (And I've met one Women's Studies prof since then who characterized the Florida State prof as "what a bitch!", which did my heart no end of good.)
The Flat Earth Society would likely agree with you.
ps - most Ron Paul supporters are the complete opposite of the caricature you have presented as a (pitiful) form of satire. Maybe Romney is closer to the flat earther archetype you desire?
The same way a civil engineer makes the money to reimburse himself for the time and effort spent designing bridges.
The same way a pilot makes the money to reimburse himself for the time and effort spent flying planes.
See where I'm going with this? Writing is a job like any other. You find someone to pay you to do it, then you do it, then you collect the money that they already agreed to give you.
Barbers don't go around cutting hair for free and then asking for money later. Pilots don't just fly any old plane they come across and hope someone will pay them for having done it. They find a paying customer first and do the work afterward. As far as clones, perhaps you don't understand the concept. It's taking something and duplicating it, not creating a product which simply performs the same functions. Of course. What else did you think I was referring to?
Apple manufactures a product called the iPod, which consists of certain parts arranged in a certain way. If someone else can arrange the same parts in the same way to produce the same product, but do it in a more efficient way that allows them to sell the product for less, then that's good for customers. That's competition. And here you demonstrate your utter lack of understanding of the world. How the hell would Apple pay their researchers? From the generous donations of people such as yourself, who altruistically want the world to progress? What I've demonstrated is your closed-mindedness. Research is a service, and it'll be paid for by the people who benefit. Think about that: who benefits from the existence of the iPod? Everyone in the chain, from manufacturers to musicians to listeners, has an incentive to pay for that research.
You know, most people don't call it a "donation" when they pay for something that benefits them. They call it a "purchase". In this case, they'd be purchasing a service (researching new products), but that's nothing unusual; people purchase services all the time. At least be honest so you don't have to conjure up lame rationale. You just want the cheapest version of something and are willing to support rip-off scumbags to get it. No, that's just a strawman that copyright apologists like to put in their opponents' mouths. You're hardly the first person to realize that it's easier to argue against a caricature than to address what I'm actually saying. Not if they don't rip it off. What part of creating your own product do you have such a hard time with? Look, if I buy a bunch of components and put them together to form a product, that's "my own product" in every important sense, even if they're the same components in the same arrangement that make an iPod. You can't own an arrangement of components. That's as silly as owning a number, or a color, or a size. It's an attribute of a product, not a product in itself.
You should vote your conscience, not for the pre-approved "front-runners." I imagine a lot( perhaps majority) of people would agree with Kucinich's platform if they actually took the time to understand his point of view on the issues instead of reacting to his media caricature. And you should take another look at what Edwards is all about--most progressives I read prefer him to Obama. Of course, you could just fall in line with the false dichotomy presented by the mainstream media. If people were less preoccupied about voting for a "winner" and instead chose the most ideal candidate perhaps we wouldn't be quite so fucked these days. my 2 cents . . .
Well, that or you really really hate yourself and think you deserve to be punished. Again with the ad hominems--never understand why certain people feel the need to get so _personal_ with their politics! It's sometimes a good idea to relax, take a step back and a deep breath, and reexamine the situation.
FWIW, I felt Fellowship was fairly accurate and as good as could be expected. Dialogue was moved around a bit, some significant pieces excised (necessary due to time constraints), but on the whole it worked. The Two Towers, however, is a completely different matter. I am most upset with the whole subplot of Faramir and the significant changes to plot they entailed.
I threw up in my mouth a little with Elrond showed up with Anduril in RotK. And the green pacman army of undead was just ridiculous. Denethor was comical, when in reality he was a character whose gravitas was nigh-equal to Gandalf, with the exception that Denethor gave into despair. The movies devolved into caricatures that I just wanted to be over.
Alot of people comment on how the movies 'felt' like LOTR, but in reality that credit goes to set designers and cinematographers who lifted (with permission in most cases) from long time artists associated with Tolkien publications. They looked like Tolkien, smelled like Tolkien, but true lovers of the books know the movies were (paraphrasing a rogers water quote) "competent forgeries".
Well, it appears we agree he was a step below Stallone and Schwarzenegger, and I readily concede your point about Norris. Dolph is the lame duck in the Pantheon, because he was in a lot of "A" level blockbuster action movies...he rarely starred in anything memorable so his star status is more like "...and Dolph was in it too".
But I'd definitely put Van Damme on the same level as Seagal. Seagal had a solid resume of action movies from around the same time that probably peaked with Under Siege. Which was definitely an "A" blockbuster action movie, and it did considerably better at the box office than even Timecop. (156 million vs 104 million).
And Kurt Russel...I hear what you are saying... but if you look at his filmography... he's done an awful lot of action hero work; he's just managed to largely avoid getting the name recognition of the others. I'm not really sure why. Maybe because for the most part, Russel isn't a caricature of himself the way the other action heroes are.
His characters aren't all just "Kurt Russel" with a new name in the same way Van Damme's or Schwarzenegger's are in most of their action movies.
(I will avoid saying anything at all specific about the plot, but in case you're utterly paranoid about spoilerism, I thought I'd give you a warning anyway)
Hollywood at its patronising, intelligence-insulting worst. Endless needless exposition (characters talking to their daemons massively overused as a way of spelling things out which you could quite easily infer, gets very annoying very quickly), doubly irritating since so much of the action was Predictable Hollywood 101 anyway (OH NOES, character A is just about to get the chop! but YAY! character B appears from nowhere and saves them at the last instant but then OH NOES, character B is about to get the chop but then character C appears from nowhere and saves them at the last instant YAY!
Besides the lead 13 y/o girl, who was somewhat impressive, all the acting was dire. Hammy as hell, the characters had all the depth of pantomime caricatures: although it's slightly hard to blame the actors, given such contrived, pantomime dialogue it's hard to see how they could have done better.
The anti-religious allegorical aspect simply didn't make sense. (Disclaimer: I'm an atheist, so it's not like I criticise this because it offends my beliefs, it just didn't add up.) For the most part the religious bad guys seemed like bad guys because of their secular, not spiritual, totalitarianism; the only obvious religious parallel to them was the transposition of the "original sin" doctrine, but that felt lazy and unsubstantiated; and how anti-religious can a film honestly be when it simultaenously encourages us to believe in unscientific nonsense like souls and daemons and magical dust?
About the only good thing I can say for it is that some of the cinematography was fairly nice; but even then, in a cheap own-brand LOTR rip-off kind of way.
Truly awful, reminded me why it's been years since I went to the cinema. $18 for a ticket, before you even include transport and a bit of popcorn, then you get unwatchable, patronising dross like this - and the MPAA blame falling attendance on thepiratebay? What a joke.
Google is the only search engine I use lately, and I find their sponsored ads quite useful. I was recently searching for monogrammed towels to buy for my brother for Christmas, and searching for them on Google resulted in more relevant content among the sponsored ads than than among the search results. I got what I wanted and was satisfied. I'm not sure what you think I was weaseling out of, but O.K. I have experience like yours. Perhaps the most spectacular "hit" I got was a side bar ad from gmail when I writing someone with regards to the current state of affairs of preinstalled-Linux notebook computers in the US. I didn't buy anything, but the ads pointed to sites which pretty much had everything I wanted to know on the subject.
The California-only home mortgage ads were from Yahoo! served up to me whenever my mother sent me email. There's no word other than "stupid" for targeted ads like that being aimed at a computer in the middle of the jungle in Mindanao. Heh, Yahoo! always serves me up US Green Card lottery ads when I login to webmail outside of the US. That's a wonderful bit of targeting too.
I'm not against advertising in general - I've seen it proven in economic experiments I participated in as a lab rat in college that advertising when it includes pricing results in lower prices for purchasers.
But look. There are webmasters who consider it verging on criminal when AdBlock is in use calling it "theft of service". (That seems to be the general consensus on webmasterworld.com, there are a fair number of people here who do as well). There are also those who call clicking on ads without intent to buy "click fraud". I can't find my original reference on this now, maybe they've toned it down and maybe I'm thinking of the most radical people on webmasterworld. The current definition on Wikipedia is more reasonable that what I first read. At any rate, "theft" and "fraud" is pretty strong language and I do object to that. Your thinking about this issue is deeply flawed. Nobody buys "whatever Microsoft is peddling at the moment". Nothing on the web makes it possible to share "share everything about you with whomever". Nobody accepts what is given to them without running it through some process of critical thought. What you've done is draw a caricature of a person that does not exist in real life, Look at yesterday and today's dupe articles on the EU/Opera and Microsoft dispute (read at -1) and consider what many people are writing there. Many people here disagree with you.
There is a reason why the most used browser by percentage is Internet Exporer v6. There is a reason why eventually the most used PC O/S will be Microsoft Vista. Neither of them have anything to do with the quality of the product (one way or the other) or critical thinking. and are implying that the caricature is the only possibility other than being just like yourself. Nope, that was not my intent. Sorry to give you that impression.
I would have said "thanks" but your post contains many weasel words.
Google is the only search engine I use lately, and I find their sponsored ads quite useful. I was recently searching for monogrammed towels to buy for my brother for Christmas, and searching for them on Google resulted in more relevant content among the sponsored ads than than among the search results. I got what I wanted and was satisfied.
Sometimes when I'm at a site that's new to me and they have AdSense installed, I'll see an ad for a similar site that sounds interesting and will check it out (though this has yet to result in a purchase).
I hate ads that cover the sites' content until you close them, or that play sound or animations, and when I come across an ad that does that, I edit my hosts file and redirect all subsequent traffic from that ad server to 127.0.0.1. Like with everything in life, ads are not black and white. Some are useful, some are unacceptably obnoxious.
Your thinking about this issue is deeply flawed. Nobody buys "whatever Microsoft is peddling at the moment". Nothing on the web makes it possible to share "share everything about you with whomever". Nobody accepts what is given to them without running it through some process of critical thought. What you've done is draw a caricature of a person that does not exist in real life, and are implying that the caricature is the only possibility other than being just like yourself.